Album reviews: Britney Spears and Beyoncé Knowles

Patrick Varine

Tuesday

Nov 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMNov 25, 2008 at 9:34 PM

As the holiday shopping überbonanza prepares to launch into full blitzkrieg mode, some of pop’s brightest stars are releasing new albums. Both Beyoncé and Britney take a few chances, but while Britney brings little new to the table, Beyonce's alter ego rips up the dance floor.

As the holiday shopping überbonanza prepares to launch into full blitzkrieg mode, some of pop’s brightest stars are releasing new albums. Both Beyoncé and Britney take a few chances, but while Britney brings little new to the table, Beyonce's alter ego rips up the dance floor.

Britney’s "Circus" seems to be trying to balance her early, poppier sound with the industrial grind of later songs like “Toxic.” Sometimes it works, but too often it comes off as a bit derivative of Euro-techno acts like Kylie Minogue.

“Phonography” is a phone-sex anthem that tweaks the techno formula slightly and works well, and several tracks that feature a sort of modern pop-shuffle are a welcome change of pace, but most everything has a glossed-over, encased-in-plastic feel.

Even Spears’ voice, once a pretty powerful instrument, has been compressed and reduced to a breathy nasal shadow of its former self. Her singing was never all that distinctive, but the singer on "Circus" could be any number of generic pop starlets.

Beyoncé’s fighting-with-my-edgy-alter-ego album, "I Am… Sasha Fierce," like so many other double-albums, could have done well with some trimming ... like perhaps the whole first album, which is chock full of midtempo R&B jams that occasionally show promise (“If I Were a Boy,” “Halo”), but more often cover a lot of ground familiar to Destiny’s Child fans.

The second, Sasha Fierce, disc, however, kicks off with “Single Ladies,” matching a syncopated beat with an Atari video game bleep and setting a much better tone.

Riding a lot of dark, futuristic dance grooves, the back half bumps and slides effortlessly, from the horn-powered “Ego” to the horrorshow R&B of “Video Phone” and “Diva,” which borrows the vocal-repeating chant from Lil’ Wayne’s “A Milli” and adds a paranoid synth line.

It’s not that Britney’s "Circus" is bad. It just sort of runs in place, whereas "Sasha Fierce" gets off to a bit of a slow start, but hits the nitrous-oxide and blasts down the back stretch.

In this pop superstar battle, Beyoncé is going to win out every time.

"I Am... Sasha Fierce" is available now. "Circus" will be released Dec. 2.

Sussex Countian

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